IMPORTANT PRIVACY CHOICES 

How We Use And Protect Personal Information

At the GE Wellness Plan, protecting your privacy is very important to us.  The GE Wellness Plan is owned and operated by Signature Agency, Inc., a member of GE Financial and a part of the General Electric Company (“GE”).  We value your trust.  We want you to understand what information we collect, how we protect it, and how we may use it.  We treat nonpublic personal information (“NPI”) that identifies you with respect and in accordance with this Privacy Notice.  NPI is vital to the GE Wellness Plan in meeting our goal to provide you with products and services.

This Privacy Notice is designed to provide information regarding how we collect, use and disclose NPI we gather when you visit www.familydentalusa.com on the World Wide Web.  This Privacy Notice is currently applicable only to our United States customers and visitors when they interact with the GE Wellness Plan through the Family Dental USA website.

 Our Privacy Notice

This is our Privacy Notice:

·        We will describe what NPI we collect, how we protect it, and how we may use it.

·        We will maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect NPI we obtain about our customers.

·        We will require servicing companies to whom we disclose NPI to adhere to our Privacy Notice.

·        We will keep your health information confidential. We will not disclose it to outside companies without your permission, except as permitted by law.

·        We will also comply with any other state requirements that relate to the use and protection of your NPI.  In those states with more restrictive laws, we may provide a separate notice of those requirements.

Please read on for more details.  This Privacy Notice includes examples of the types of NPI we may collect and with whom we may share NPI.  These examples should not be considered a complete list of our information collection or sharing practices.  As used in this Privacy Notice, “you” and “your” refer to an individual consumer and “companies” may include individuals.

Information We May Collect

We may obtain NPI to provide you with products and services you have requested, to determine if you qualify for products and services, and to service your membership.  We may collect NPI that identifies you and describes how to contact you. We may also collect NPI on your transaction and experience information.  We may collect this NPI from you, our affiliates, and outside companies.  We have listed examples below of the sources and types of NPI we may collect.

·        Applications, registration forms, or other forms that contain your name, address, phone number, social security number, e-mail address, income, assets, vehicle information, policies, and accounts with others.

·        Your transactions or experiences with us, other GE or outside companies, such as your insurance or health coverage, premiums, transaction history, and claims history.

·        Credit reporting agencies and other similar companies, such as your obligations with others, your driving record, medical claims, and social security number.

·        You and others, such as NPI relating to your employment, other insurance coverage, past or present health condition, habits, avocations, finances, credit data, and other personal characteristics.

·        Hospitals, doctors, laboratories and others that provide NPI about your past or present health condition.  Health information will be collected with your permission, as we deem proper to determine if you qualify for coverage, process claims, and prevent fraud. Health information will also be collected as permitted or required by law.

·        Other companies that have NPI about you, such as your name, address, phone number, and transaction information.

Information We May Disclose And To Whom We May Disclose Information

We may disclose the NPI we collect.  The service providers and others to whom we disclose NPI are obliged to use such information only for the purposes stated.  Disclosures may be made as stated below.

Disclosures To Service Providers

We may disclose NPI we collect to others, such as insurance agents, banks, administrators, towing companies, software consultants and other third parties that provide services for us. These services may include:

·        Administrative or customer support;

·        Printing and delivering statements and other documents; and

·        Protecting against fraud.

Disclosure of NPI made to these service providers is done to help us better serve you.

Disclosures To Other GE Companies

We may disclose NPI to other GE companies, which are involved in diverse businesses ranging from financial services to consumer products.  You do have the right to opt out of sharing consumer report information, as described below.  We may disclose NPI to other GE companies for purposes such as:

·        Fulfilling your requests; and

·        Offering you other products or services that may interest you.

Disclosures To Outside Companies

We may disclose NPI we collect to outside companies for marketing and related purposes.  Outside companies are non-GE companies who may offer products or services to you. These may include:

·        Banks, insurance or other financial companies;

·        Retailers or direct marketers; and

·        Non-profit or social organizations.

If we have agreements with outside companies that restrict sharing your information, we will abide by those agreements.

Disclosure Of Health Information

We may disclose health information as authorized by you or as permitted or required by law.  For example, we may disclose NPI to determine if you qualify for coverage, process claims, or prevent fraud.

Disclosures To Marketing Firms

We may disclose NPI we collect to companies with which we have marketing arrangements.  These include:

·        Companies that help us market our products and services; and

·        Other financial institutions with which we have joint marketing arrangements to offer financial products or services.

Other Disclosures Permitted By Law

We may make further disclosures of NPI as permitted or required by law.  For example, we may disclose NPI to law enforcement agencies or state insurance or health care authorities.

When We Will Notify You

We will always post our current Privacy Notice on our Web site.

Change In Privacy Notice

We reserve the right to change or add to our Privacy Notice at any time.  We will always post our current Privacy Notice on our Web site.

Our Security Procedures

We maintain procedures and technology designed to prevent unauthorized access to NPI.  We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural protections in accordance with applicable standards to protect NPI.  We restrict access to NPI to employees and others for lawful business purposes to assist in providing products or services to you.  Employees who violate our Privacy Notice are subject to disciplinary action. 

Online Privacy

In addition to the Privacy Notice outlined above, the following online privacy principles apply when you visit us on the World Wide Web.

·        Online information and collection.  You can visit us on the World Wide Web without telling us who you are and without revealing anything about yourself, including your e-mail address.  Our Web servers collect the name of the domain you used to access the Internet, such as aol.com. We may also collect the Web site you came from and visit next.

·        We may measure the number of visits, average time spent, and other data about visitors to our Web site in general.  We may also use this data to monitor site performance and to make the site easier and more convenient to use.  We may use this in the course of delivering an advertisement to you.

·        We may also summarize data about our customers, sales, traffic patterns, and services, and provide these statistics to third parties. However, when we provide this to others, it will not include any information that identifies an individual.

·        Cookies.  Cookies are small pieces of data stored by your Internet browser on your computer’s hard drive.  We use cookies to enhance your Web viewing experience and to measure Web site usage.  With the help of cookies, we may present you with customized offerings or content that may be of interest to you.  We may also use cookies to remember your user name so you do not have to reenter it each time you visit our site.  You may be able to set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie or to prevent cookies from being sent.  Please note, however, that, by not accepting cookies, you may limit the functionality we can provide to you when you visit our site.

·        Links to other Web sites.  We are not responsible for the information collection practices of other Web sites when you link to them from our Web site.  We cannot control how those parties use cookies or whether they place on your computer cookies that may identify you personally.  You should carefully review the privacy policies of the Web sites you visit to understand how they collect, use, and disclose information.

·        Information from Children.  We do not knowingly solicit information from children and we do not intentionally market our products or services to children.

·        E-mail communications.  Occasionally, we may send you e-mail communications with information that may be useful to you, including information about our products and services or about offerings from other GE companies or third parties.  You will be given the option of not receiving any such e-mail messages, if you choose.

·        Encryption.  We use encryption and authentication tools to protect information we gather on our Web site.  E-mail communications outside of our Web site, however, may not be protected.  If you are sending us an e-mail communication that includes highly confidential information, such as a credit card number, you may want to call us or send it by regular mail.

·        Access.  In some cases, you may be able to update certain information that you provided to us.  This may require you to use a unique user name and password (or “PIN”).  Also, where the capability exists, you may request that we modify or delete information we have gathered during your visit to our Web site.

·        Visitors/Registered Users.  As a visitor to our Web site, you may have access to certain features without telling us who you are or revealing any information about yourself.  We will not gather any information about you when you are using these features.  We may require you to become a registered member in order to gain access to and use other features.  Once you become a registered member, we may collect personal information when you use our Web site.

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The practices and policies contained in this Privacy Notice replace all previous notices or statements with respect to the same subject.

This Privacy Notice will not apply to your relationships with other financial service providers, such as banks and independent insurance agents.  Their privacy policies will govern how they collect, use and disclose NPI that you allow them to access.

This Privacy Notice applies only to the information collection practices of GE Wellness Plan.  NPI obtained by other GE companies will not be governed by this Privacy Notice. You should review the privacy policies of those specific GE companies to understand how they collect, use and disclose NPI.

Updated September 22, 2003